We have to be courageous and realize, for instance, that our approach to the road matter has been, for too long, founded onprotection instead of prevention.

We must attribute the right dignity and importance to several disciplines usually left guiltily aside. (”Road safety is a public health issue that intimately involves a range of sectors, including that of health. All have their responsibilities and all need to be fully engaged in injury prevention.” The Fundamentals, WHO 2003 pag. 25)

THEORETICAL ASPECT

We need to recognize the human factor as the main element acting in road safety, and promote disciplines as

Anthropology (“Roadway traffic is a social field distinct from the sedentary environs through which it passes. It has a setting, with boundaries, rules, and rights of access, whose definition and clarity vary from culture to culture.” Vishnu and the Art of Motorcycle Driving: Toward an Anthropology of Traffic. R. Thomas Rosin),

Sociology (Driving on public streets is an orderly affair structured subjectively by participants trusting each other and objectively by laws and regulations.(Traffic Sociology: Social Patterns of Risk, Peter Rothe,)

and Psychology for the right comprehension of bad driving behaviours and understand how to correct them.

Bad driving behaviours are not only about drugs, alcohol and texting (external implications), but they are also due to a lot of factors regarding the cognitive-behavioural field (internal implications).

It means awareness of all human implications in driving and road sharing, as described above. It means mindfulness about what I’m doing, who and what are around me when I’m driving, it means maturing the ability to perceive and recognize most of the possible markers of risk is in order to prevent troubles and collisions.

All these good practices, together with the theoretical principles, have to be communicated and teach to politicians, decision makers and road professionals. And a proper life-long learning has to be given to common road users.

of the vehicles for the consequences of impact on human body. And for the probability that the crash happens itself.

We must impose a human-compatible urban speed limit, that have to be not higher than 20 mph, generally, except for certain main roads, that anyway doesn’t have to exceed that limit too much.

We can use preferably structural and technological solutions. Firstly we can make it physically impossible to overcome speed limits and secondly we can ensure that every infraction will be properly detected and fined.

The third solution for facing speeding is using human resources such as traffic police.

TRAFFIC REDUCTION

Road congestion has several types of consequences:

Directly statistic: the more vehicles and journeys you have on the road, the more collisions you get.

On people behaviour: when you are stuck in the traffic and you feel stressed and frustrated so that you develop aggressiveness and violence on driving.